Panel Recap -- America and the World

The Constitution 2020 Conference opened powerfully with a panel that engaged questions essential to defining a vision of progressive constitutionalism: Who ‘counts’ as American? And what kind of law ‘counts’ as American?

The panelists, along with their moderator, Bruce Ackerman, tested the boundaries between citizen and non-citizen, and between U.S. and international law, in the context of national security, foreign policy, immigration enforcement, and discrimination against minorities since September 11, 2001.

The panel opened with Aziz Huq (University of Chicago Law School) and Muneer Ahmad (Yale Law School), who tackled issues on citizenship, personhood, and advocacy. Their comments framed an approach to the question of who ‘counts’ as American. Then Jon Michaels (University of California Law School – Los Angeles) and Oona Hathaway (Yale Law School) reflected on the need to reintroduce democracy to determine what kind of law ‘counts’ as American law. Their proposals paid special attention to checking executive power in national security and foreign policy matters.

Video Courtesy of Yale Law School
Who ‘counts’ as American?

Since September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans have had a common encounter with discrimination that has often placed them outside the circle of who ‘counts’ as American. While discrimination can and has alienated Muslims, Aziz Huq proposed that this shared experience also has the power to form the otherwise diverse and fragmented community into a single interest group that can reclaim core constitutional rights, such as free speech, freedom of religion, and privacy.

As credible advocates for constitutional change, Muslim Americans can powerfully advocate to base counter-terrorism operations on trust and cooperation with the Muslim community, rather than on surveillance and suspicion. Huq urged that we open foreign policy decision-making to a diversity of voices, including Muslim Americans, because “without voice, loyalty often erodes.”

Muneer Ahmad then identified the citizen/non-citizen divide as a major barrier to expanding who ‘counts’ as American to communities with immigrant populations. Traditionally, the rights granted to citizens and persons in the Constitution are considered independent sources of rights, but Ahmad argued that the two are in fact tethered together so that “citizenship circumscribes personhood.”

Citizenship exceeds personhood across our legal system. In order to secure protections of personhood for their clients in court, for example, immigrant rights advocates must argue that their clients are citizen-like – hard-working individuals who go to church, don’t have a record, and have the support of family and friends. In other words, lawyers must argue that their clients are super-citizens who represent a form of social rather than constitutional citizenship. However, the rights of personhood will never meet the full level of rights that citizenship provides. Immigrant rights advocates therefore necessarily reinforce the citizen/non-citizen divide and the paradox continues.

How can progressives expand who ‘counts’ as American under our Constitution given the dominance of the citizen/non-citizen divide? We can either expand the ambit of citizenship, Ahmad suggested, or re-imagine citizenship entirely to better match a globalized world where people have multiple loyalties and identities.
What law ‘counts’ as American?

Turning to the sweeping powers of the executive since September 11, 2001, Jon Michaels and Oona Hathaway reflected on what law ought to ‘count’ as American. Jon Michaels noted that the Bush administration bypassed constitutional requirements; it gathered information from corporations about their customers, used foreign interrogators, and engaged in domestic wiretapping, for example.

The problem of unchecked executive power is not specific to the fight against Al Qaeda, however, but rather a result of broader globalization processes where "the law lags behind," Michaels argued. Social, technological, and economic trends in globalization blurred traditional legal boundaries, allowing the Bush administration to aggrandize power and operate military and national security apparatus free of traditional regulation. Michaels concluded that Congress and the courts ought to check executive power in the future through structural change rather than ad hoc regulation.

Oona Hathaway brought the discussion into an international framework, examining America's relationship to other nations through its dual powers of making law and making war. Hathaway noted that most of U.S. foreign policy is made by the President acting alone, authorized by Congressional authority delegated some forty years earlier. Similarly, under our Constitution, Congress gives the President limited authority to make war, but those limitations have been ignored when expired, reducing Congress' role to paying war bills.

Hathaway argued that progressives should bring congressional oversight and democratic legitimacy back into international law and foreign engagement. Specifically, Hathaway and Bruce Ackerman are working on a proposal that would create a new default rule that makes Congressional authorization for war expire in two years time.

Take a look at the video to learn more about their proposal -- and dig deeper into all of these rich reflections on a progressive vision for constitutional change.

The Constitution in 2020 is a companion website to The Constitution in 2020 (Oxford University Press 2009). Here you will find ten sample chapters from the book, essays about the future of the U.S. Constitution, discussions of current constitutional issues, a bibliography and resources for further study.